Tuesday, May 4, 2010

Soave, rico

Here's complete disclosure: I'm in Spain, where I'm drinking liters of great wine, yet I just spent half an hour searching through my tasting notes for an Italian wine I liked recently.

Why? My advertising deal with Wine Chateau (check out the display ad on the upper right), gives my readers a shipping discount, but the Internet wine discounter chooses the words the discount links to. This month, those words are "Italian wine."

I can write anything I want -- I could go easily go into a dissertation on Rueda -- but the words "Italian wine" would look pretty strange in an article discussing the relative merits of Verdejo, Viura and Sauvignon Blanc (Hint: Get the Verdejo. More on that later.)

Fortunately, last month I tried Inama's Soaves and was favorably surprised by what Stefano Inama is doing in a region I had long associated with relatively characterless whites.

I first opened his Inama Soave Classico 2008 ($17) when I was having a big platter of sashimi but felt like wine rather than sake. It didn't disappoint: it was crisp and lively, with good stone fruit, and was a great palate cleanser.

He also makes an Inama Vigneti di Foscarino Soave Classico 2007 ($26) from old Garganega vines on top of Mount Foscarino that's intense, with aromas of pineapple and gravel, and flavors of pungent passion fruit, a medium-weight mouthfeel, and vibrant acidity. This wine surprised me, as I didn't think Soave got this intense; shows what I know about Soave. I'm glad I didn't open this wine with sashimi. I had it with clam pasta, and it was just fine.

Both wines are available from Wine Chateau, and my readers get a shipping discount on any wines at all, whether or not it's Italian wine - Get 1/2 off shipping of 6 or more bottles with coupon code "blake29".

As the cool counter-cultural bands I used to see at bars around my university said, don't forget to tip your waitress.

(Further disclosure, courtesy of the FTC: The wines arrived as free samples, unexpected and unrequested. But I'm not getting any compensation for writing any of this, other than keeping my advertiser -- who really does have good prices -- happy. If you think even big newspapers don't do that these days, I've got some mortgage-based securities I'd like to sell you.)

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Legal notices

1) The material on this blog has been created by W. Blake Gray, is protected under US copyright law and cannot be used without his permission.

2) To the FTC: In the course of my work, I accept free samples, meals and other considerations. I do not trade positive reviews or coverage for money or any financial considerations, unlike certain famous print publications which have for-profit wine clubs but, because they are not classified as "bloggers," are not required by the FTC to post a notice like this.